viking86

It's common in Norway to have a shot of this together with the Christmas dinner (along with wine, beer and whatever the kids are drinking). And for the record I'm not a fan either... at all! LOL! I usually take a small shot though for the social part, but I have yet to experience one I like. By the way, do they still serve Carlsberg beer in Norway? First of all it's Danish and not Norwegian, but most important it would improve our pavilion tremendously if they actually started serving some decent beer...

Well, I don't live in the US, but it might be interesting to compare prices in different countries as well. I haven't been to a travelling fair in many years, but I got curious so I decided to check. The largest operator in Norway is Lunds Tivoli and they have the ticket prices on their website. Here are the prices in NOK and converted to USD with the current exchange rate. Single ticket* - 47 NOK ($5,78) 7 tickets - 279 NOK ($34,29) 15 tickets+fastpass - 599 NOK ($73,63) *Their KMG Speed and KMG Inversion requires 2 tickets to ride.

Great report from Kolmården! I definitely agree with you about the ending on Wildfire, it does run out of steam a bit after the final inversion. But it's still a fantastic ride, for me the favorite part was everything from the top of the lift up to the second inversion. But the final roll was fantastic as well!!

2 years huh? Talk about holding a grudge LOL! I almost lost it when he was running out of breath towards the end of the song! Oh I can assure you that the story made it to the other side of the Atlantic as well...

Note to self: Do not read reports from Food & Wine Festival BEFORE dinner. As if I wasn't hungry enough...

Awesome start to the trip report! As a bit of a train geek I found this very interesting. Love the bar and lounge car, that looks great! Looking forward to see more!

You're not wrong. The bottom of Viper's drop actually was quietly re-profiled at some point during it's first couple years of operation (Exact year/date is completely unknown). The videos below show proof of this change though. Here is the original drop (skip to 6:36) which you can see used to have a harsh unbanked snap as it leveled out at the bottom. Sweet, thanks for finding that video! Good to see I'm not making things up... The original transition is actually quite interesting. On most older Arrows the unbanking is done after the turn is over, but here the banking is going back to 0 practically before the turn is over. I wouldn't be surprised if this ride pulled some significant outward lateral G-forces at the bottom of the drop.

^Those sure are some interesting ride vehicles! I'm very curious to see the test runs. Edit: Also nice to finally have a confirmation on which way it will travel...

Picking up a new computer on my way home from work today. WOHOO!!

On the subject of ride operators at Funfairs, I'd say this guy is pretty entertaining! (no idea what he's saying most of the time though)

I'm probably wrong, but I don't recall track replacement ever happening on Viper, in at least the past 20 years. There have been trim brakes added and the trains are thoroughly rebuilt, and like any Arrow it is frequently checked and repaired for weld cracks and fatigue, but I have never remember an instance where track has been replaced. If you have any kind of evidence for this happening it would be greatly appreciated. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the first drop on Viper was reprofiled at one point. I seem to recall having seen an old POV where the banking at the bottom of the first drop is quite different. Unfortunately I'm not able to find that video. Can someone confirm that it's not just my imagination?

"Lucky Jack" American Pale Ale by Lervig Brewery. A very fresh and highly drinkable beer, but I wish it had just a tad stronger taste as it feels just slightly watered down. Still a nice beer though on a warm evening.

Walibi Holland

When you come across a music video you haven't seen in years, and both the song and video still makes you chuckle...

Just for fun I decided to kill some time and go through my list to see how much it would change. According to coaster-count.com I have ridden 153 coasters + 1 travelling which is not listed on the site. After removing all the clones, meaning listing only one of each ride, my count was reduced by 28, to 125 coasters. Which means that most of the coasters I have ridden have been unique rides for me.

When I ride a new coaster I do add it to my list on http://www.coaster-count.com to have a bit of an overview. However I don't care about having as many rides as possible on the list. For example during my trip to Kolmården this summer I didn't bother to ride the two kiddie coasters at the park. I could have done it, but I figured it was better use of the time to get an extra ride on Wildfire. Thinking about it, I've actually never been to my closest park. Okay so it's about 5 hours away which doesn't exactly help, but either way it's gonna take a bit more than a Vekoma family coaster and a Reverchon spinner for me to do that trip. PS! My current count is about #150 (total), but I have absolutely no idea what coaster was my #100. And neither do I care...

I've been raving a lot about the high quality of Norwegian Craft Beer, but the other day I had a bottle of Vikingr Pale Ale from Gulating and my god was this thing horrible! Absolutely disgusting stuff! After this picture was taken I had one more sip and I then poured it in the sink. It's been a very long time since I've not finished a beer, but this time there was just no way! Fortunately I had a can from Nøgne Ø to take the taste away...

August was wet! July was even wetter! Now it's September, it's officially autumn, and the forecast says it's gonna be a sunny week with temperatures in the 22-25 degree Celcius range. What the hell is going on?? Heck, even for tonight the temperature is not gonna drop below 18 degree Celcius (64*F). It's like summer again LOL!

Awesome report Chuck! Gröna Lund is a really cool little park! Love the photos from the backstage tour of Blå Tåget, always fun to see what these rides look like with lights on. Thanks for sharing! Looking forward to Kolmården!

^

Me too..... in Europe that is!

I noticed that the pictures for El Condor and Xpress Platform 13 at Walibi Holland are not quite up to date, as both rides have received repaints and new ride signs. I have pictures of both in my trip report from earlier this year, including the ride signs. http://themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=71838

My car has Takata airbags..... my car is a deathtrap!

Talking about last turns, I would have loved to see the final turn on Speedmonster dive all the way down to ground after the corkscrew before climbing back up to the brakerun. (and I wouldn't mind seeing one of the S-hills replaced with an airtime hill)